Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is an ink painting by the Yuan dynasty literati painting artist After Zhao Mengfu. It dates from 1309 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
The painting is dated 1309, but no one knows for sure who made it, some think it might be Zhao Mengfu, a scholar and artist who loved painting horses.
You see a long, narrow scroll with two men standing beside two horses, one red, one white.
The artist used fine, crisscrossing lines (cross-hatching) to shade the horses’ muscles and folds in their blankets. This technique makes the ink look almost like soft fur or fabric. The painting is dated 1309, but no one knows for sure who made it, some think it might be Zhao Mengfu, a scholar and artist who loved painting horses.
If you like this, look up more works in the subject: men, horses.
Subject & Meaning
The handscroll portrays a solitary figure on a horse against a landscape background. The composition shows a man mounted on a horse, a common motif in Chinese painting that can suggest travel, status or narrative movement. No explicit symbolic attributes are recorded; the work is identified simply as depicting a horse and a man.
Executed in ink and color on silk around 1309, the piece is attributed to an anonymous follower of Zhao Mengfu and is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its meaning is tied to the literal representation of these two elements rather than to a coded allegory.
Technique & Style
The work is executed as a handscroll using ink and color on silk, a traditional East Asian painting format that combines a horizontal viewing sequence with a luminous, absorbent ground well suited to layered washes. Classified as a painting in the landscape genre, the composition depicts a horse and a man, and its 1309 date situates it within the Yuan dynasty tradition associated with Zhao Mengfu, whose calligraphic brushwork and refined ink handling the piece emulates.
The silk support would have required careful preparation to take pigment evenly, and the handscroll format implies a deliberately paced, unfolding visual rhythm rather than a single fixed view.
History & Provenance
Untitled is a 1309 handscroll painted in ink and color on silk, depicting a horse and a man. The work is attributed to a follower of Zhao Mengfu and classified as a Chinese landscape painting. It was created in China and entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains on view.
The painting's inception is recorded as 1309, and its medium and format match contemporary Yuan dynasty handscrolls. No earlier owners are documented, and the piece was not formally commissioned, reflecting its emergence as an anonymous work within the tradition.
Overview
This handscroll, titled Untitled, is an ink and color painting on silk from 1309. It presents a landscape scene featuring two men alongside a pair of horses, one red and one white. The long, narrow format allows for a sequential viewing experience as the scroll is unrolled, characteristic of this traditional East Asian art form.
Artist & collection
